literacy_instructionfandomcom-20200215-history
Section 1
Reading has always been a big part of my life. Both of my parents hold Master’s in literature, and my mother is a literacy coach at a middle school. Needless to say, my parents have always read for fun themselves and read aloud to my sister and I constantly. Each week we would go to the public library together to pick out our own books; I remember being so excited when I finally got to sign the back of my very own library card. Because books and reading have always been such a huge part of my upbringing, I don’t even remember learning to read. I never did matching phonics cards like some of my students do, and I never had to practice fluency. My parents just read to us constantly, letting me hold the book and trace the words with my fingers, turning the pages together. In elementary school we did a lot with teacher directed reading of big books and guided reading with anthologies. I didn’t need any form of tiered intervention, so mostly I remember reading kids’ series: Junie B Jones, Magic Tree House, Wishbone, etc. By the time I was in 2nd grade, I was reading the Harry Potter books by myself. My reading teachers always encouraged me, but I attribute my success in reading to my parents more than anyone else. Growing up I did have many wonderful science teachers. I think that is the reason that to this day science fiction and fantasy are my favorite types of things to read. My fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Carlise, particularly influenced my reading style. She would bring us in books about animals, and always kept a colorful library with cushy bean bag chairs. The middle school I went to also had a great science program, and our language arts classes tended to align with what we were learning. I remember reading Gary Pulsen’s Hatchet in 6th grade and to introduce the book my ELA teacher staged a plane crash for us and did a mini survival lesson. The teachers who stuck out to me the most were the ones who obviously went above and beyond to prepare for their students. I was lucky enough to get teachers who completely immersed us in whatever we were learning, and who obviously collaborated well with their learning teams. Because of my experience growing up, I support a top-down method of teaching reading. It was so incredibly powerful to me to see the adults around me excited about both what they were reading personally and what they were giving me to read. The classroom should be a supportive community that completely immerses a child in literacy. This way, a child can have the confidence to not know a word but continue reading on anyway for meaning; I want my students to crave the story, and to not be intimidated by a few unknown words. Once I have inspired a love of reading in my room, I think it is a lot easier to go back and teach strategies for finding unknown words. I see a lot of teachers push phonics strategies first without taking time to do picture books as a group or giving their students specially picked books to read. The children in those classes groan when they come to my room and have to read a book with me, or when they have to make dance based off a story. The magic is gone. I’ve had children be completely disinterested in my class, but if I find out something they like and give them a book about it I see this whole new life in them. One of my boys loves sharks, so I gave him a Super Shark Encyclopedia book. Now every time he sees me I get a big hug and I haven’t seen a single behavioral problem out of him since. Taking the time to build a child’s interest in reading also builds a strong relationship between teacher and student, thus cutting down on behavioral problems drastically. My guided reading time is my favorite part of my day. I see small groups of third graders for about 20 minutes every day where we read out loud and discuss our book. The novels I pick are always specific to the group, and we always read for a specific purpose. My students love coming to reading group! They put tons of sticky notes in the book so they can share all the ideas they have on our theme for the day. We will go over new vocabulary, but I am more interested in getting them to read with purpose. I use that time to teach our standards and strategies. It is more important to me that they can identify cause and effect, sequence of events, and have strong summarizing skills. In the process of thinking critically they are still practicing phonics skills and their oral reading skills, but that is a side effect of loving the reading time. Since I’m only in my second year of teaching, and as a lateral entry dance teacher, I can’t give much evidence to the success of my reading lessons. I will say, though, that because my co-teacher and I are passionate about our children loving reading we have created a very positive learning environment based on exploration and discovery. This year each and every one of our third graders passed their End of Grade assessment. I feel a great deal of pride to say that I had at least a little bit of a hand in that success. I will continue to create an immersive reading classroom with the hopes that my students in the coming years will continue to be successful, as well as find a love of reading. Below you can find the 3 theories of how children learn to read: Models of Reading